


Long Lost

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Off-screen Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Peter gives Neal some bad news, Neal handles it the way that feels right to him, even if it's not what Peter seems to expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Lost

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [](http://rabidchild.livejournal.com/profile)[**rabidchild**](http://rabidchild.livejournal.com/)'s [prompt](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/133333.html?thread=1067989&#t1067989) at the [](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/)**whitecollarhc** Comfest 2013. It's set vaguely post-S4.

"Neal?"

Neal looked up from his work to see Peter standing in front of his desk, looking distinctly uncomfortable, the deep furrow in his forehead that usually meant he was about to do something he didn't want to do. "Hi, Peter," Neal said, trying to keep it casual.

"I need to talk to you for a minute. Upstairs?"

"Of course." Neal was curious why Peter had bothered walking downstairs to fetch him, but he stood and followed Peter up the stairs, trying and failing to get a look at the slim file in Peter's hand.

Peter paused in front of his office door, then looked down the hallway. "Let's go in the back meeting room."

Neal raised his eyebrows, willing to pretend that he thought there was any kind of chance that Peter wanted the privacy for fun reasons. The meeting room in the back, one of the few rooms in the office that didn't have glass walls, was used for highly secure or confidential meetings, and Neal couldn't think of any good reason Peter would want to talk to him in there. As far as Neal knew, everything had been going smoothly for the past few months, and Neal was making a point of keeping his head down, avoid any of Mozzie's little plans. The most dangerous thing in Neal's life was his relationship with Peter and El, and Peter would never want to talk about that in the office.

Neal felt his heart start to race as he entered the room behind Peter and he took a slow, smooth breath to even it out. "What's going on?"

"Let's sit down," Peter said, his voice grave, and Neal's instincts urged him to run--out the door, down the stairs, disappear into a crowd on the street and never be seen again--but listening to those instincts hadn't done him much good in recent years. He sat down in the chair Peter had pulled out, diagonally across from him at the corner of the table, and bumped his knee against Peter's.

Neal sat perched on the edge of the chair, though he made a point of dropping his shoulders to look more relaxed. "Will you tell me what's going on?"

Peter sighed then looked straight at Neal. "I got a call from the Marshals a little while ago."

Neal instantly felt sick. "I thought that everything was--"

Peter put his hand on top of Neal's then, heavy and steadying. "It was the Witness Security Division, not Prisoner Operations. Neal, they were calling about your mother."

Neal sat back in his chair, switching mental gears from panic to confusion. "My mother?"

"Neal, I--I'm sorry to tell you that she passed away."

Neal felt the room spin around him and then settle with a jolt. "Oh," he said, voice faint over the pounding in his ears.

"I'm sorry," Peter said, his thumb rubbing back and forth over Neal's hand, and it was too much.

Neal pulled his hand back. He swallowed, clearing the hum from his ears, and nodded. "It's okay."

"I don't think it is." Peter looked across at him with sad, serious eyes and Neal thought, with a flash of anger, that there was no reason for Peter to be so sad when it didn't mean anything. Neal had lost his mother a long time ago.

"How did she die?" Neal knew that was something he should ask, and as much as it wouldn't make any difference he didn't want to have to wonder, to imagine.

"Liver disease. I'm sorry I don't have details but it sounds like it happened quickly."

Neal nodded. "You can stop apologizing, Peter. I'm okay. We weren't close for--for a long time."

"But still--"

"I know how you feel about your mom, the good memories you have. I don't have that, so I don't--" Neal wanted to say _so I don't really care_ but he knew how awful that would sound and he didn't want to see Peter's reaction. "It's just not the same. Thank you for letting me know, but I'm okay."

Peter looked doubtful, but he nodded and closed the file. "I can make arrangements for us to go--"

"No. There's no point in that." Neal looked across at Peter--Peter, who was so patiently and kindly waiting for Neal to break down--and rolled his chair closer until he he could nudge his knees in between Peter's. Neal was never completely sure that there was no monitoring or recording going on in this room but this was okay, this wouldn't look like anything. "I'm okay, really."

Peter rubbed his leg against Neal's, fabric scratching across fabric, then nodded, his face still so sober. "If you say so. Why don't you go ahead and leave for the day?"

"I'd rather just get back to work." Neal rolled back and stood, moving towards the door.

"Hey." Peter was on his feet and in front of Neal more quickly than Neal anticipated. "Come here." Peter put his hands on Neal's shoulders, and Neal felt him hesitate, giving Neal a chance to pull away, but Neal just held himself still. If Peter needed to hug him to feel better about the situation, Neal could give him that. But he didn't fall into Peter's arms, didn't lean into the steady strength of his chest.

When Peter stepped back, Neal walked out of the room and back down to his desk in the bullpen. He felt Diana watching him out of the corner of her eye, but he didn't acknowledge her curiosity. Peter could tell her or not, Neal didn't see how it made any difference. Neal had been barely eighteen the last time he saw his mother, and the fifteen years before that had been a lie. Lies within lies. From the time Neal had been old enough to see his mother's day to day lies for the empty promises that they were, he wouldn't let himself be angry, wouldn't let himself hate her because his dad had been a hero and she had lost him, and it wasn't her fault that she was too sad to do things like going to parent-teacher conferences or driving him to birthday parties.

By the time he was old enough to realize that he came a distant second to the potent combination of alcohol and self-pity that his mother prefered, Neal had already figured out how to take care of himself, how to get the things he needed. Ellen was there for the most important things, but she couldn't be around all the time to make sure Neal had a posterboard when a science project was due or a new backpack when the strap on his old one broke. Neal figured out how to handle it on his own, and it was all fine in the end, but looking back he thought he'd pretty much lost his mom when he was three years old. That was thirty years ago, more than enough time to grieve.

Neal's phone buzzed with a text, and he looked down, startled to realize he'd been lost in his head for more than half an hour. _You don't need to be here right now,_ it said, Peter of course. _Go home, I'll talk to you later._ Neal looked at his screen and had no idea where he'd left off in his research. He obviously wasn't getting anything done, and if he left maybe Peter would stop worrying.

 _Whatever you say,_ he texted back, then looked up and saw Peter watching him with sad, concerned eyes. _You're the family that matters to me,_ Neal wanted to say, but he couldn't. Definitely not in a text, maybe not at all.

He picked up his hat and left the building, and when he got outside Neal realized that he had the gift of a few free hours on the clock. The Marshals would assume he was with Peter, so he took the opportunity to roam a little bit out of his radius. He wasn't interested in anything criminal, nothing even particularly exciting, but it was a nice day out and Neal hadn't spent much time in SoHo recently. He walked down some streets he wasn't familiar with and browsed through a few promising-looking galleries. One of them had a photography collection, macro portraits of flowers, and Neal stood and stared at the hyperreal shot of a lily of the valley stem, tiny white petals with water droplets quivering on the tips.

His mother had loved those, and he used to steal them from the garden of a nice house that was on his walk home from elementary school, carry them home, careful not to crush them, their fragrance rising up to fill him. He would steal them, and every now and then she'd actually notice, and those were the best days. Neal's head suddenly ached, and it was time to head home. He flagged down a cab and tried very hard to think about nothing for the duration of the ride uptown.

Just as he'd promised, Peter showed up after work bearing dinner and a bottle of whiskey.

"I thought you might want something stronger," he said, and that was Peter. He couldn't choose a good bottle of wine to save his life, but the whiskey was top shelf.

"I'm okay," Neal said, and Peter didn't argue but his hand on the back of Neal's neck was warm and solid, his lips soft as he pulled Neal in for a long, slow kiss, a kiss that felt like home.

They ate dinner, and Peter was about to open the whiskey when he hesitated. "Will you come back to the house with me tonight? I haven't told El anything about your--your loss--but she wouldn't want you to be alone. I don't want you to be alone."

It was tempting, the offer to spend the night between them, Peter's hard lines at his back, El's curves in front. It was tempting, but it felt like too much. Despite the number of ways his mother's death didn't matter, Neal still had too much spinning through his head to deal with both Peter and El at the same time. El would be kind and maternal, and Neal loved her for it, but for the night he needed some space and quiet to let everything settle inside of him. "I'd rather be here in my own space," he said, and Peter nodded.

"What if I just stay here?"

"I don't want to take you away from El. That's not what this is supposed to be."

"You're not. I'll tell her that something happened, and I don't want you to be alone. It's the truth, she'll understand."

Neal thought about it, the idea of sleeping with Peter in his own bed, and everything inside of him said _yes_. "I'm not going to make you leave."

Peter ran his hand through Neal's hair, and smiled sadly. "Good." He poured them each a couple fingers of whiskey then went out to the terrace to call El.

Neal knew that, given the opportunity, Peter would try to draw him out on the subject of his mother--part comfort, part curiosity. Glass in hand, Neal dimmed the lights in the apartment and found a movie on TV. He and Peter shared a guilty love of old westerns, and spending the evening indulging in that with Peter felt better than being alone without the stress of having to talk about his past.

Peter took the hint. "El sends her love," he said, and then he settled into the corner of the couch, limbs loose and easy, arm pulling Neal in closer. Neal breathed in the lingering hint of Peter's cologne and let his mind turn off as much as possible while he watched an endless stream of horses and deserts and ramshackle old towns. When Peter said, "Come on, bed," Neal let Peter pull him to his feet.

When he climbed into bed a few minutes later, curling up against Peter felt terribly good. They hadn't been doing this very long, this complicated, amazing thing he was building with Peter and El, and it had never been just two of them all night, never in Neal's bed. "Thank you for staying," he whispered, and Peter held him closer.

"I love you," he said into Neal's ear, and Neal couldn't say it but he stroked his foot up and down Peter's ankle and settled back against Peter's chest before closing his eyes.

 _You're the family that matters to me,_ he thought as he let himself fall asleep. Maybe one day he could tell Peter, maybe one day he'd understand.


End file.
